The mythical conflict : have science and religion got on better than people think?

Abstract

There is a common belief that science and religion have been in conflict throughout history, and that science has been the unequivocal victor in this war. High profile examples of this conflict include the trial of Galileo and the Monkey Trial over Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, the true relationship has very often been one of concord and cooperation. This talk will look at why we imagine that conflict has been the dominant mode of interaction between science and religion, and how the truth contains a good deal more nuance. We’ll also look at how the conflict myth was invented in the nineteenth century by authors like Andrew Dickson White and why it remains so prevalent today.

To see how the conflict myth is based on a misunderstanding of history, we’ll briefly examine five key topics: science and religion in ancient Greece; how the church supported science in the Middle Ages; the controversies over the work of Copernicus and Galileo; why Enlightenment rationalists attacked religion; and the reception of Darwin’s work on evolution.